Happy Valentine's Day (day 9)

I was able to celebrate my valentine's day just how i wanted, with Heather that is. I was at the hospital from 11:00 to 5:00. She is still not back to herself prior to surgery, but better than when the day she had emergent surgery. She is with it and able to answer everything, but she talks to you with her eyes closed. It is really funny. I think she just wants to rest and keep out of pain, so she lays there very still but will talk with you. But she can open her eyes. She got some morphine last night for pain and had some fun hallucinations. She told my brother that a bunch of cancer patients were in her room and somebody brought medical marijuana in and they all were fighting over it. But Heather did not want any cause it made the others throw up. She told us this with a straight face and really believes it happened. It was pretty funny. She also thought she was wetting the bed and that nobody cared. I explained to her she had a catheter in, but she insisted she did not and started to get angry with me.

Her perception of time is off. She thinks a couple minutes is a long time. So if you ask the nurse to get ice chips, she thinks it has been a really long time and gets impatient. This is not our typical Heather, but it is common to be negative and a bit mean after brain surgery. People often have different personalities after brain surgery, and i hope this is not heather's permanent new one. Funniest thing is that sometimes just when we think she is out of it or saying something crazy, she totally surprises us. Her nurse's name today was Jacob and he kept asking Heather what his name was. Finally she told him she would never forget it cause of Jacob on lost. He asked her who that was and she told him an entire explanation and synopsis of lost. How does she remember all of that???? She also said that a song was stuck in her head....."Don't cry for me Argentina" from Evita. Heather was such a crack up today. I left to go get her a jamba juice but buy the time I walked to my car, got to the place, got the drink, parked again and walked to the hospital it had been 30 minutes. The entire time I was gone she was mad at me and kept asking where I was and saying that I probably would never come back.

Heather still cannot move her left leg. It is very upsetting to her. I keep reminding her to give it time. Her strength in her arms comes and goes. She still has a drain in her head to remove extra spinal fluid and keep the pressures in her head low. Tomorrow the plan is to clamp the drain and monitor the pressures in her head without the ability to remove fluid. If she can keep them low like that then on Monday they can take out the drain and she can resume physical therapy and get out of the ICU. All in all she is mentally there and just wants to get better. Her Cat scans show her brain has improved much since the surgery and there is plenty of room around her brain stem for spinal fluid to pass now. Lets hope we continue to progress from here on out.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!